


Test and Result

by whoneedsapublisher



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, Summer Camp AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21962848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoneedsapublisher/pseuds/whoneedsapublisher
Summary: Nico and Maki hated each other from their first conversation. But when they end up together for a test of courage in a pitch black forest, will fear lead to a new bond forming between them?
Relationships: Nishikino Maki/Yazawa Nico
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	Test and Result

**Author's Note:**

  * For [staticvibing on tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=staticvibing+on+tumblr).



> I missed Love Live Secret Santa this year, so here's my random Santa gift to a fellow fan.

When you think of summer, there are a few things that come to mind. Visiting the beach. Ice cream. Sparklers. Tanabata. But when you think of the ultimate high school summer event, something that you can do even if there isn’t a beach or a pool available, even on days where there’s no festival events, it has to be the test of courage. A dark summer night, warm darkness enveloping those who walk winding hallways or forest paths, and nothing but their partner to stave off the terror of the unknown all around.

So of course, as a brave young woman, Nico had joined in with the test of courage at her summer camp. As well as being a traditional rite of passage, it was also a perfect event for strengthening bonds. Just the two of you, alone in the woods… maybe you’d chat pleasantly as you walked, and then you’d hear a spooky noise and cling to each other, but when it turned out to be nothing, you’d laugh and promise not to tell anyone about your reaction. Thus, with that shared secret, you’d grow closer as friends…!

So why the hell had the random lots paired Nico up with _Maki_ , of all people?

It had been only a few minutes after arriving at the camp that Nico and Maki had first become enemies. They were the first two people of their age group that had been there. Nico had arrived early because she’d come on the bus with the younger kids to see her siblings off to the nearby junior cabin. Maki had been early because of course she couldn’t take a _bus_ , she had to be _driven_ to the camp by her _chauffeur_. When Nico had been looking for the waiting place for the older kids, she’d found Maki and greeted her- only for Maki to call her a pipsqueak tell her that the junior camp was next door.

From then on, their relationship had only gone downhill, from getting into an argument at the meet and greet portion of initiation, to bickering on their way to the cabin (where they were cursed with neighbouring beds), to the incident at canoeing which Nico didn’t even want to _think_ about it.

Luckily, Nico had met some other, much nicer girls, and even Maki seemed to have made some friends. Somehow. Nico wasn’t sure why such seemingly decent people as Rin and Hanayo put up with someone as insufferable as Maki, but they seemed to be close, for reasons Nico couldn’t imagine.

And yet, despite them both having their own perfectly nice groups of friends, Nico and Maki kept finding themselves assigned to the same groups,put on the same teams, and now, paired up for the test of courage.

“This sucks,” Nico grumbled, running the beam of the flashlight across the path ahead of her idly. “Why the hell did I end up with _you_ as my partner?”

“I’m not any happier about it than you are,” Maki said. Nico pointed the flashlight back at her and saw that she was crossing her arms and glaring at Nico.

Irritated, Nico swung her beam back to the path, letting Maki’s sour face fade back into the darkness where it belonged.

“Whatever. Let’s just get this over with,” she said.

“Sounds good to me,” Maki said. “Besides, this is all stupid anyway. It’s not like there’s _really_ ghosts or anything out here… right?”

She was trying to hide it, but Nico could hear a flicker of doubt in her voice. An evil grin spread across her face, a Cheshire smile in the darkness of the woods.

“Huh? Of course there’s ghosts, Maki,” she said innocently. “It wouldn’t be much of a test of courage if there weren’t, right?”

“Y-You’re just messing with me!” Maki said, but with her voice suddenly getting high and squeaky, she was less than convincing.

“Oh no, no one told you?” Nico said. “Well, your reliable senior will fill you in on alllll the details, okay?”

“Hmph. Go ahead,” Maki managed. “It’s all fake anyway.”

“Well… do you know what people used this forest for before it became part of the camp, Maki?”

Nico heard a faint sound from behind her. Was Maki nodding or something? How the hell was Nico supposed to tell in the _dark_?

Seemingly realizing that herself, Maki spoke up. “No.”

“Well, there used to be a major logging camp here,” Nico said. “Obviously, the forest was much bigger at the start. All of the camp used to be forest, decades ago, and some of the camp buildings are repurposed from the old logging camp. It makes sense, though, right? Why build a new cabin when there’s alread-”

“What does this have to do with ghosts?” Maki interrupted.

“I’m _getting_ to that, okay?” Nico snapped. “Jeez. You’re so impatient.”

“No, _you_ just get carried away and love the sound of your own voice. I don’t need your opinions on efficient use conversion of facilities.”

“You think just cause you know a couple complicated words you’re soooo smart…” Nico muttered. “Fine! Anyway, you’re probably wondering why the logging camp shut down in the first place, right? There’s still plenty of forest, after all.”

“I assumed it just wasn’t profitable anymore,” Maki said. “I still don’t know what this has to do with ghosts.”

“I’m. Getting. To. That!” Nico snapped, then took a deep breath to calm herself. _Back to story telling mode. Don’t let Maki throw you off._ “So. The reason why the camp shut down. It _wasn’t_ just that it was unprofitable. It was still making plenty of money, in fact. The problem was… no one would agree to work there, after the incidents started occurring.”

“Incidents?”

Nico noted with some satisfaction that Maki’s calm, bored demeanor was starting to waver a bit. There was a distinct hint of nervousness to that single word she’d managed.

“That’s right,” Nico said, dropping her voice lower. “It started with an accident. A tree fell the wrong way, and barely missed hitting one of the workers cutting it down. It was bad, but no one thought much of it. But then, it started happening more and more often. After a week a so, it was getting so bad that there was at least one case of it happening every day. People were starting to get injured. And then, after two weeks… _it_ happened.”

“It?” Maki squeaked.

“That’s right,” Nico said, trying to hide her glee at Maki’s reaction. “There was finally a fatal accident. One of the loggers was using a chainsaw to cut down a tree. It wasn’t big enough to use a team of two with the big saw. He had it tied up so that it would fall away from him, like any standard job. But… when he cut through the trunk, all the ropes snapped at once. And strangely, instead of falling the direction it normally would, the tree fell directly towards him… and crushed him.”

Maki gasped.

“After that, the workers were sure that the whole project was cursed,” Nico continued. “People in the town whispered that they’d offended the local gods, and that the forest spirits were all against them. No one local would work for the camp anymore, and even workers from elsewhere heard rumours and started turning down jobs. With no one willing to risk the ire of the forest, the owners had no choice but to shut down and sell the land. It was bought up by a local man, who declared that the forest would be protected, and opened up a summer camp to stop anyone else from trying to misuse the forest.”

Maki was silent. Doubtless hanging on Nico’s every word.

“And so the logging stopped,” Nico said. Now it was time for the killing blow. Everything up until now had simply been the groundwork. A moderately unsettling story, but nothing that would make you afraid to walk through the forest at night. But that was all about to change.

“But,” Nico said, savouring the anticipation that word invoked. “They say that the grudge of the man who was killed lingers in this forest until this very day. He died for the logging project, but in the end, he was abandoned, and his sacrifice was for nothing. So he grew into a twisted, vengeful spirit, who hates everyone who enters the forest and isn’t punished for it. They say that if you find a fallen tree blocking the path, all lit up, it might be the tree that crushed his body. And then he appears, wearing the same mask and helmet he died in, and holding the chainsaw he used to cut down his final tree… and makes sure that you suffer like he did.”

“You’re lying,” Maki said nervously. “T-The conseleurs wouldn’t let us do this if it was dangerous!”

“It’s a ghost story, Maki,” Nico said. “Do you really think they’d ban kids from going into the forest based on that? After all, it isn’t as if the ghost of the lumberjack leaves many witnesses. The conseleurs wouldn’t have any reason to believe the legend is true…” Nico dropped her voice to a harsh whisper. “...Even if one or two kids go missing on a test of courage now and then…”

The beam of Maki’s flashlight was wavering now, Nico noticed smugly Ha. Maki was _terrified_ , and all because of some nonsense ghost story that Nico had come up with on the fly. That’d teach her to disrespect her elders.

Really, though, Maki was so childish, believing a silly ghost story like that. Sure, the summer camp really _was_ built on the site of an old logging camp, but it had probably just shut down for the very reason that Maki had said- it stopped being profitable. Nico was just such a talented storyteller that she could entrap poor little Maki in her nefarious web. My, but she _was_ a sinful creature.

As they turned the corner, something came into view, illuminated by a floodlight coming from the edge of the path.

It was a fallen tree.

A chill ran down Nico’s spine.

...No, she was being silly. It was just a coincidence. Trees fell in forests, even without someone doing it. It happened so often that there was a whole philosophical question about whether it made a sound!

But it _was_ just a fallen tree…

Then who had set up the lamp?

There was a revving noise. With growing horror, Nico turned the flashlight towards the source.

Standing there, hefting a chainsaw, was a man wearing a helmet and a protective mask.

“Maki, run!” Nico shouted, spinning around to face her.

“What about you?!” Maki called, panicked.

“I’ll hold him off! Now _go!_ ”

“Uh… what exactly are you kids talking about?”

Nico paused.

That didn’t sound much like what a vengeful ghost would say.

“Sorry to interrupt your spooky atmosphere, but the last group through said there was a fallen tree, so I came out to clear it before someone stumbled into it in the dark and hurt themselves…” Flicking off the chainsaw, the man pulled off his mask to reveal… one of the conseleurs.

“Conseleur Hiroto?” Nico asked.

“That’s me,” Hiroto said.

“So… you’re not the ghost of the vengeful lumberjack?” Maki asked.

“What? A ghost?” Hiroto asked, blinking. “What are you talking about?”

“The ghost!” Maki said. “Of the lumberjack who was killed right before the logging camp got shut down because the forest was cursed!”

Hiroto chuckled. “Is that the story you kids are telling each other around the campfire now?” he asked. “The logging camp shut down because the owner of the summer camp bought the whole thing out. He’s a big Tokyo businessman now, but he grew up in the town near here and he always loved the forest. So when he heard it was being cut down, he stepped in to stop it and built a summer camp in its place so that other kids could enjoy the forest that had defined his childhood.”

“...Oh.” Maki sounded like she felt pretty stupid, but not a tenth as stupid as Nico felt. Not only had her ghost story been completely dismantled, it had happened after _Nico_ had panicked and believed it herself. What kind of moron fell for their own lie?!

“Well, be careful going past the tree, alright?” The man said, pointing to the edge of the path where there was just enough room to squeeze past. “I’ll get back to cutting it up, and I should have out of the way for the next group.”

“Okay,” Maki said.

“Thanks,” Nico mumbled.

“Have fun on your test of courage!” Hiroto said.

Nico and Maki maneuvered past the tree in embarrassed silence, as as they continued down the past Nico heard the chainsaw start back up behind them.

Needless to say, the spooky atmosphere of the dark forest had been damped somewhat by the simultaneous debunking of the ghost story and friendly meeting with a counselor who didn’t seem afraid in the slightest. An intrusion of warm normality on the chill eerieness of the woods.

In other words, their test of courage was entirely ruined.

“Hey,” Maki said, after they’d been walking for a while without exchanging a word. “...Thanks.”

“Eh?” Nico said, turning her flashlight on Maki curiously.

“When we thought Hiroto was the ghost-” Nico groaned at the memory “-you tried to hold him off while I escaped.”

“Oh, that?” Nico said, trying to sound casual. “Well, as a senior, I have a duty to protect younger kids, right?”

Maki scoffed. Probably skeptical about the idea of Nico as her senior, the little jerk…

“Yeah right,” she said. “Most of the older kids would have run off and abandoned me without a second thought.”

Honestly, she probably wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t that they didn’t _care_ , but Nico could imagine plenty of the other girls panicking and not even thinking about the fact that someone else was with them until they were already gone.

“I’m glad it was you that I was with.”

Nico’s heart skipped a beat for a moment.

Woah, woah, what was with that? Since when did _Maki_ say sweet things like that? Was this a setup? Maki wasn’t this cute, was she? She was always rude and abrasive, wasn’t she?!

“Hmph,” Nico managed. “If you want to thank Nico for something, you should thank her for coming up with a good ghost story to make this test of courage more exciting!”

“You did _what_?!” Maki squawked. “Then- was that all _planned_?”

“How could I have planned it, Maki?” Nico snapped. “I didn’t know there was a fallen tree!”

“So you _weren’t_ being nice, you were just pretending to be scared when you knew it wasn’t a ghost at all!”

“Excuse me? Do you really think I’d humiliate myself in front of the counselor like that just to mess with you? Despite what you think, you’re not actually the center of the universe.”

“ _I’m_ the one who thinks they’re the center of the universe?”

* * *

In the end, they continued to bicker all the way back to the camp. As far as a test of courage, most of it hadn’t taken much courage at all, the two of them too wrapped up in their argument to be afraid. But despite their shouting, despite the harsh words they traded back and forth (and some of them were pretty harsh), Nico couldn’t help but feel like she’d seen the new side of Maki. Her sincere gratitude, that moment of vulnerability in the darkness, kept running through Nico’s head.

And so, when the day came to an end, and the two of them went to bed, side by side, Nico turned and whispered to Maki.

“Good night, Maki.”

For a moment, there were only the sounds of the other campers shifting and sleeping. Then, quietly, Nico heard the reply.

“Good night, Nico.”

Well.

It was a start.


End file.
